Short Biography: Theodor Seuss Geiss

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Born Theodor Seuss Geisel, also nicknamed Ted by family and friends, though much better known as his pen name, “Dr. Suess”, was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. At this time, Springfield was highly populated with a multitude of manufacturing companies as well as German immigrants, Ted’s grandparents included. Father, Theodor Robert, helped his father with a very successful family-owned brewery. In 1909, Theodor Robert was chosen for the Springfield Park Board. Geisel often came to the zoo with his father, bringing along a pencil and sketchbook to draw exaggerated doodles of the animals in. Ted’s mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, would often lull him and his elder sister to sleep with her rhythmic chants. She would chant “softly, …show more content…

Geisel’s peers scoffed at him for being of German descent. So, as to prove his patriotism, Geisel became one of the top ten U.S. Liberty Bond sellers with the Boy Scouts. When former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt came to his town to award medals to the top ten bond sellers, there was a mistake. Roosevelt had only nine medals to give, not ten, and when he got to Geisel standing at the end of the row of bond sellers he asked, "What's this boy doing here?" and was quickly escorted off the stage without receiving a medal.This incident traumatized Geisel, giving rise to an acute fear of public speaking held for the rest of his …show more content…

Seuss won countless number of prizes including the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, Caldecott Honor Medals, and several doctorates, his primary motivation, his wife Helen, suffered from many lengthy and threatening illnesses including cancer. She ultimately committed suicide in 1967 and in 1968 Geisel remarried to an old friend, Audrey Stone Diamond. Along with a second wife, Geisel acquired his first and only children, Lark, fifteen at the time, and Lea, who was eleven. Although it was clear Geisel always wanted to have children, he and his wife were unable to. Instead, he would boast of a more-than-just-imaginary daughter, Chrysanthemum-Pearl. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, his second children’s book to be published, was dedicated to “Chrysanthemum-Pearl (aged 89 months, going on 90).” He even included her on Christmas cards, along with Norval, Wally, Wickersham, Miggles, Boo-Boo, Thnud, and other make believe

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